


a little strain

by LittleRaven



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dimension Travel, Dimension travel to a significantly-diverged timeline, Dimension travel to mirror universe, Gen, Mirror Universe, Sith Ahsoka Tano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-07 21:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20466326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: She wondered what it would be like to dig it out. Expose it to the air, sweep the filth away.





	a little strain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingargents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/gifts).

It was not, she supposed, difficult to look for Jedi. Ahsoka scrolled through reports, bored. The trick during this day and age was in actually finding them. She suspected that this was why her master had given her the task. Her lips pulled down into a pout, before she caught herself. Resentment was fine and encouraged. Pouting was not. 

She wouldn’t let him call her cute again. Her master was underestimating her power, and being most un-Sithlike, in her opinion; he should be throwing her at challenges and making her prove herself, not cushioning her life by giving her the duties of a bureaucrat. 

“Any other person and you’d snap their neck if they bothered you with anything,” she’d grumbled. 

“That’s exactly why you’ve got to be the one doing it,” he said easily, and left the room. She’d known better than to let herself be charmed by the implied compliment, and he’d known better than to think it would work; he just liked to end a discussion by messing with her further. Perhaps it was a tactic to train her, to rile her up. She dismissed the thought. It sounded more like something he would say to justify himself than it did like truth. 

The Force rippled. Ahsoka willed it to reveal why, more to have something to interrupt her thoughts than anything else—Sith needn’t be obedient or dutiful, whatever they said in direct conversation—and her blood raced. She extended her senses carefully, so as not to alert the person with her presence; it was unlikely, the Force being as heavy with the dark side as it was, but she couldn’t be too careful. She was a predator, after all, Sith and Togruta both. Her prey must be hunted accordingly. 

Ahsoka would show her master she could do this. She would bring in a Jedi kill—or a captive, whichever seemed best at the time. He hadn’t been able to do that in years. She would prove that he hadn’t been wrong to select a nonhuman apprentice, and maybe, she thought, he would finally give Ahsoka her new name. 

Her lips curved into a smile. She would force him to recognize her, as a true Sith would, and together they would do what he’d promised: take his master down and rule in his place. 

The planet wasn’t much to speak of. It never had been, really. Just a rural grassland with hidden riches that hadn’t been put to use until the empire extracted them. What it had to give, had now been taken. It made her think of her own home planet. She hadn’t been to Shili since her family had given her to the bounty hunters, but there remained a hazy feeling of the grass under her feet, and warmth. Someday she would return. She would tell them to whom they had given their daughter, let them know of the folly it had been to want to hide her from the Sith. All was well, she would say to them. It had made her stronger in the end. They would understand, and she would save them when the planet burned for their attempt to work with the Jedi. She had been promised the chance to do with it whatever she liked, when she was ready. When she was worthy. 

Ahsoka reached out through the Force. There was the one thing Lothal had which deserved notice. Brighter than expected. No light like this should be found during the time of the Sith. Her heart beat faster. This was it. She would not shy away from the challenge. 

Gathering the Force to her, she willed it to carry her to her target, and ran. 

There was a temple, old. She didn’t question why it had appeared, and why she had never heard of it until the report came through. At it steps, unconscious, lay a girl. Her twin. Beside her, lay her master. 

Or facsimiles thereof. They looked peaceful. Perhaps because they were sleeping. But there was the presence she’d sensed, light, though closer attention revealed that there was a little strain of darkness in them both, like a vein of gold. She wondered what it would be like to dig it out. Expose it to the air, sweep the filth away. 

Ahsoka shook it off. Any ideas like that would have to wait. Whatever, or whoever they were—she was sure they were people of some sort, even if she could not believe the appearances they wore—they must be contained and investigated. She thought of her master. She had not passed the information onto him, of course; he had given her this duty and, regardless of whether he’d actually wanted her to make a discovery, she had and she’d acted on it. Still, he had to have sensed it, and been on his way himself not long after her departure. He would take charge. 

She had to get them trussed up before then. Leave him with little or nothing to do. He wouldn’t back off over that, Ahsoka was certain, but he could at least give her the credit for doing all the work, and find no excuses to brush that aside. 

Newly determined, she approached the one who resembled him, and slapped on the Force-dampening cuffs. Her senses stirred, and she rolled when the Force pushed her down, before crouching by her prisoner’s head. Her other prey stood opposite her, lightsabers drawn behind her back. A mirror image; despite all the light she’d felt, and the blue of the girl’s eyes, her snarl was the same one Ahsoka had seen in her own face when the occasion required it. 

Ahsoka took in the situation. She had an unknown enemy who looked like her, and another unknown, but controlled, enemy beside her. She considered using that one as a shield. The girl should prove soft, as light-siders were known to be, and so the tactic had a good chance of success. 

His breaths were even, but he showed no sign of waking. She had never seen her master asleep like this before. 

The thought left her mind as she was pushed down yet again. This time she had no control over her landing. 

The grass was soft under her face. Ahsoka stirred, then leapt to her feet as the memory of the encounter infused her with energy. Her head still hurt; she drew on the pain to stay awake. 

They were gone. She couldn’t sense them. 

Her master wasn’t here either. He was, perhaps, engaging them right now, if he’d caught them trying to leave the planet. Waiting for her. 

She would not let him take the victory without her.

Letting fury give her strength, willing it to turn her failure into an imminent success, she sped away towards her ship.


End file.
